Public Art Projects

Recent public art projects in Halifax

The Halifax Regional Municipality facilitates the creation and acquisition of quality public art and ensures that professional artists are involved in its creation. The Halifax region has over 250 public art projects and installations. 

The following projects are the most recent public art projects that have been commissioned by the municipal government. If you are looking for information about new calls or ongoing projects click here

Turtle - The Storyteller, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Turtle - The Storyteller, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Caribou - The shoveller, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Caribou - The shoveller, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Queen Victoria & The Common Raven, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Queen Victoria & The Common Raven, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Wolf - The One Who Echoes, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Wolf - The One Who Echoes, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Diana with Songbirds, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Diana with Songbirds, Jacqueline Metz, Nancy Chew, Gerald Gloade

Storytelling, Jacqueline Metz and Nancy Chew in collaboration with Gerald Gloade, installed on Spring Garden Road

In 2020 the Public Art contract for the Spring Garden Road Streetscaping Public Art Project was awarded to artists Jacqueline Metz & Nancy Chew with cultural commentary and design by Mi'kmaw artist, cultural educator, storyteller, naturalist, Elder and visionary Gerald Gloade. Along Spring Garden Road, linking the lush Public Gardens to the Central Library, will be a series of 5 colourful silhouettes.

Before the city, there was nature - the land immemorial - and all who inhabited it - moose, muskrat, beaver, and duck, encampments of families, hunters, trappers, gatherers and fishers... Storytelling links the Central Library, a place of books and the written tradition, to the Public Gardens. An artifact of the colonial Victorian era, the Gardens are inhabited by figurines, ghosts, flitting birds, small animals and, before the Gardens were gardens, there were animals, Mi’kmaw, nature…it is a place of many stories over time. The five ‘storybook’ silhouettes are characters inspired by this area – by the people and creatures who have inhabited the area.

Jacqueline and Nancy were drawn to the Gardens, an artifice of nature inhabited by figurines, ghosts, flitting birds, small animals and even further back, before the Gardens were gardens, the memories of caribou, hunters, trappers…a place of overlapping enigmatic stories. The library is a place of books and the written tradition - containers of stories, narratives, ‘history’; the Public Gardens, an artifact of the colonial Victorian era - are also a container of stories, narratives, ‘history’.

The artists are very grateful for their working relationship with Gerald Gloade, Mi’kmaw artist and cultural educator. He not only provided the artists historical insight and cultural commentary during the conceptual development of their work but collaborated with them on one of the silhouettes - The Storyteller.

This silhouette will be kitty-corner to the Central Library, a place of books, the written tradition. The artwork here - informed by the oral tradition and Mi’kmaq storytelling - forms a counterpoint. The silhouette is an artwork by Gerald with an addition by Jacqueline and Nancy. The turtle is the great storyteller, the one who passes on culture, knowledge, wisdom and truth - and in doing so hold’s the world on his back. Listening enraptured to the turtle are two crows, slightly foolish but wanting to learn.

Jacqueline Metz and Nancy Chew are visual artists who have worked collaboratively since 1997. They met in at UBC in 1986 and found they had common interests in architecture, public space, landscape and cultural thought. Jacqueline had a childhood in northern BC, camping, building forts in the forest, watching the light shift, seasons change, leaves decay, the shifting crackling aurora borealis, exploring nature. Later formative interests include photography, archaeology, and literature. Nancy is a first-generation Canadian raised on Vancouver Island. Growing up on the Island, next to the Cowichan Tribes, her world was about navigating diverse cultures and thought systems - Western, Chinese and Indigenous. These diverse experiences and influences come together to create an art practice that is conceptual yet grounded in place - a practice centred on the public realm, an exploration of place and perception.

Gerald Gloade is an artist, educator, storyteller, naturalist, Elder and visionary, his efforts have been integral to expanding cultural understanding and contributing to healing in Mi'kma'ki. Gloade was honoured at the Vancouver Olympics Aboriginal Art Pavilion with a design on a Canada 150 coin for the Royal Canadian Mint and as a nominee for the prestigious Portia White Prize. He is also a past member of the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council. Every October, his striking and informative posters for Mi’kmaq History Month are a sought-after tool for teaching the Mi'kmaq language. Most recently, he illustrated A Journey of Love and Hope, the Inspirational Words of a Mi’kmaw Elder for Nimbus Publishing. Gloade lives in Millbrook First Nation with his wife, Natalie. The couple have two sons, Kyle and Gerald, and two grandchildren, Nina Gloade-Raining Bird and Gerald Lydian Gloade Raining-Bird.

Float (Swan) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float (Swan) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float, Brandon Vickerd, installed at the new Halifax Commons Aquatic Facility

In early 2023, artist Brandon Vickerd was awarded the contract for the Halifax Commons Aquatic Facility Public Artwork. 'Float' consists of five replicas of pool flotation devices cast in bronze installed in locations around the Halifax Commons Aquatic Facility. The artwork aims to monumentalize and celebrate shared recreational spaces by highlighting a sense of enjoyment. We have all floated weightless in a public pool, while screaming children splash around us and senior citizens leisurely swim by – 'Float' reminds us of that shared experience, encouraging visitors to pause and reflect on their own relationship to the recreational area. 

Brandon Vickerd is a sculptor whose site-specific interventions, public performances and object-based sculptures act as a catalyst for critical thought and engagement with the physical world. Purposely diverse, his work straddles the line between high and low culture, acting as a catalyst for critical thought and addressing the failed promise of a modernist future predicated on boundless scientific advancement. Whether through craftsmanship, the creation of spectacle, or humor, the goal of his work is to provoke the viewer into questioning the dominate myth of progress ingrained in Western world views.

Float (Bunny and Bear) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float (Bunny and Bear) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float (Fox) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float (Fox) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float (Dolphin) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Float (Dolphin) Brandon Vickerd (photo by Deborah Wong)

Two quillworks by Melissa Peter Paul designed to be used as the NAIG 2023 Host City Pins

Two quillworks by Melissa Peter Paul designed to be used as the NAIG 2023 Host City Pins

Two quillworks by Melissa Peter Paul designed to be used as the NAIG 2023 Host City Pins

Two quillworks by Melissa Peter Paul designed to be used as the NAIG 2023 Host City Pins

NAIG 2023 Host City Pins, Melissa Peter Paul

We are excited to share with you the official Halifax Regional Municipality NAIG 2023 Host City Pins, featuring artwork by Mi’kmaw Quill Artist, Melissa Peter-Paul. 

NAIG 2023 will bring together more than 5,000 athletes, coaches and team staff from 756+ Indigenous Nations celebrating, sharing and reconnecting through sport and culture with the help of 3,000 volunteers. Pin trading is a longstanding tradition at the NAIG games as it is with other international sporting events and provides an opportunity to connect cross culturally with other athletes and competitors. In this case, it offered us an opportunity to commission two new contemporary Indigenous artworks while also celebrating the hard work and perseverance of the organizers, athletes, volunteers, and communities that made these games possible.

The original quill works by Melissa Peter Paul (Abegweit First Nation, Epekwitk, PEI) featured in the Halifax Regional Municipality’s NAIG 2023 Host City Pins are now on display in the Downie Wenjack Legacy Space for all to see in person. We hope you will wear these pins with pride, give them away with care, and trade them with the spirit of creating stronger communities.

42 Seagulls, Jason Skinner

42 Seagulls, Jason Skinner

 Launching the gulls with a workshop by artist, Jason Skinner

Launching the gulls with a workshop by artist, Jason Skinner

42 Seagulls, Jason Skinner, installed at Alderney Gate Library

Dartmouth based artist, Jason Skinner’s proposal for 42 Seagulls was selected from a pool of submissions from local and international artists for a new public artwork as part of the Alderney Gate Library renovations.  Installed in the summer of 2022, the artist created 42 seagulls through collage made from bits and pieces of the library’s discarded materials rack and installed in Alderney Gate Atrium. 

“Gulls, like Maritimers, mostly live in large, packed colonies, and are incredibly adaptable, resourceful, and inquisitive. Unlike other migratory birds, gulls don’t typically fly in formation - they are a flock of individuals that benefit by sticking together. Gulls survive on what the sea provides them, or they make use of what they can find on the shore. And, like true Maritimers, they are not above getting a little scrappy to protect the treasure found in another’s trash.” (Jason Skinner)

The multi-disciplinary artist and award-winning illustrator has a passion for public engagement working in and with community creating temporary and permanent public murals projects across the municipality and province. Skinner’s playful approach and comfort working in public settings prompted us to launch the gulls with a public art workshop as part of Nocturne 2022 where members of the public could come and make their own seagulls from scrap magazines made available by the library in a similar fashion to how the artist created the original art piece. You can visit the 42 gulls now from the newly renovated entrance to Alderney Gate Library. 

Diversity, Christian Toth

Diversity, Christian Toth

Diversity, Christian Toth, installed in the St. Andrew's Community Centre

Christian Toth was awarded the public art commission for the St. Andrew Community Centre in 2022. The piece is titled ‘Diversity’ representing the depth of backgrounds the community centre serves. The ceramic portion of the sculpture is designed and created by the ceramic artist Steven Peters.

Christian Toth is a multifaceted visual artist. Mediums include; sculpture, painting, graffiti, murals, NFTs, multimedia, and design. His artistic journey evolved over the years and began in the world of global street art & graffiti. Growing up Toth split his time between New York City and Halifax, and was heavily influenced by the 80s and 90s New York graffiti scene, which was the catalyst to his eventual career as a full-time artist. 

Pjila'si (Welcome), Jordan Bennett

Pjila'si (Welcome), Jordan Bennett

Pjila'si (Welcome), Jordan Bennett, installed in the Zatzman Sportsplex

Jordan Bennett's ongoing practice utilizes painting, sculpture, video, installation and sound to explore land, language, the act of visiting, familial histories and challenging colonial perceptions of indigenous histories, stereotypes and presence with a focus on exploring Mi’kmaq and Beothuk visual culture. Jordan Bennett is a Mi’kmaw visual artist from Stephenville Crossing, Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland). 

This public art piece titled Pjila’si (Welcome), incorporates various materials, traditional Mi’kmaq motifs and colour to create an artwork that explores the various histories, traditions and contributions to sport in Mi’kma'ki such as the canoe, hockey, basketball and more. The piece speaks to growth, health, community, culture, family, inclusivity and respect. 

Bennett's paintings are rooted in a deep history of porcupine quillwork, which is rich in pattern through shape, colour and composition. This artwork has made use of aluminium, oak, walnut, ash and maple wood, 3M road sign sheeting, and locally sourced labradorite, and aims to inspire those who visit to feel welcomed, supported and encouraged while engaging in their active and healthy lives inside these walls and continue while outside on the land. 

A photo of the sculpture in the plaza of the North Branch Memorial Library, Gottingen Street

North is Freedom corten steel sculpture designed by Doug Bamford and Stephen Brathwaite, 2007.

North is Freedom

2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the installation of the sculpture North is Freedom in Halifax. Commissioned in 2006 as an initiative to provide a public art compliment to the redesign of the North Branch Memorial Library’s entry plaza, the corten steel sculpture is inscribed with an original poem by noted poet, author, and playwright George Elliott Clarke. The monolith also features two young figures (a third stands atop the library itself), ascending the face of the sculpture. The figures were cast by the artists with the willing participation of several local youth.

A photo of the Halifax Explosion Memorial Service at Fort Needham Park, with Memorial Bell Tower in the background

Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower CORE Design Group, 1985

Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower

The Halifax Explosion took place on December 6, 1917, and the 2017 ceremony at Fort Needham will mark the 100th anniversary of the event. The Memorial Bell Tower overlooks the area devastated by the explosion and commemorates those who were killed or suffered injury, and those who lost homes and family when the munitions ship Mont Blanc blew up in Halifax Harbour. It also honours the survivors, who rebuilt the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth in the years that followed.

The ten original bells hanging in the tower were initially donated to the United Memorial Church on nearby Kaye Street by Barbara Orr, who lost her entire family in the explosion. The bells eventually had to be removed from the Kaye Street Church owing to structural problems, and were accommodated in the design of the Explosion Memorial Tower, completed in 1985.

Bridge Terminal Murals, Sara Hartland-Rowe

Bridge Terminal Murals, Sara Hartland-Rowe

Travellers, Sara Hartland-Rowe, installed at the Halifax Transit Bridge Terminal

Travellers (Rain, Summer Bus, Summer, Trolley, Night Terminus, Dog Bus, Shopper) was created by local artist Sara Hartland-Rowe. The artist developed these paintings based on her everyday observations of people using public transit. Her sketchbooks full of drawings eventually provided the basis for seven laser-cut aluminum panels with buses and the terminal as the backdrop.

These paintings reflect the experience of transit, the physical aspect of place and travel, and the mental space of transit users who pass through the Bridge Terminal every day. Riding the bus can be sociable or mindful, contemplative or relaxing, and this artwork is intended to complement and engage these different experiences.

This artwork was shortlisted for the 2016 Lieutenant Governor’s Masterworks Award.

Sara Hartland-Rowe is a Halifax-based painter. She has exhibited her work throughout Canada, the Unite States, the Netherlands, and Argentina. She has produced large-scale wall paintings for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Windsor Art Gallery, Museum London, the Durham Art Gallery, the Koffler Gallery and Harbourfront Gallery.

A photo of the artist and the artwork for the Halifax Central Library at the time of its installation.

Artist Cliff Eyland in front of his installation at the Halifax Central Library

A photo of the artist working on the paintings that have been installed in the Halifax Central Library

Artist Cliff Eyland at work in his studio

Cliff Eyland, Halifax Central Library’s Public Art

Winnipeg-based Cliff Eyland’s proposal was selected from a pool of submissions from artists from around the world as the public art installation for the opening of the new Halifax Central Library in December 2014. Eyland’s project involved the creation of 5,000 paintings specific to the building, the local community, and the people who use the library. Each painting measures 3”x 5”, mimicking the size of a traditional library index card. Collectively—and from a distance—the paintings operate as a loose, abstract formal pattern of colours and shapes. Individually—and up close—each painting embodies a particular piece of the overall Library narrative, which has been developed in collaboration with library staff and community stakeholders.

Mr. Eyland was born and raised in Halifax and the Central Library project reflects his familiarity both with the particular history and communities of Halifax. His 30-year artistic career, which began as a student of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, has been concerned with a contemplation of the connections between libraries and artistic production.

Mi’kmaw Sign Post, Alan Sylliboy, Our Common Roots

Mi’kmaw Sign Post, Alan Sylliboy, Our Common Roots

Our Common Roots, Halifax Common

In 2014 construction began on redevelopment of lands bordering the Halifax Commons. Widening of North Park and Cunard streets to make way for two new roundabouts led to the cutting of approximately 15 maple and elm trees ranging in age from 40-120 years old. 

When trees are cut from our urban forests they are typically chipped up and sent to the landfill for cover or occasionally bucked up for firewood. Rarely, very rarely, they find their way to a craftsperson and are turned into value added wood products ranging from tables and boxes to benches and spoons or buildings. 

The City of Halifax engaged the Deanery Project, an environmental and arts learning centre on the Eastern Shore, to facilitate a process and curate a program where trees cut on the Halifax Commons will be used to create 5 art projects which will be installed on the Commons during the summer of 2017.

A curatorial approach was taken to select artists who had strong connections to forests, the arts, and a high level of skill in woodcraft. The curatorial team includes: Kim Thompson and Stuart Reddish from the Deanery Project. The artists selected were: Alan Syliboy, Erin Phillips, Gary Staple, Theo Heffler and Steve Sekerak. Robert Conrod is the sawyer.

The artworks stand as iconic sculptural pieces at their respective locations. The series of works, named “Our Common Roots”, were never meant to be permanent but the city aimed to maintain the pieces in consultation with The Deanery to maximize their lifespan on site.

In 2024, due to wear and tear, one of the pieces Flight, by Erin Philip, will be removed. It was particularly vulnerable as it was meant to be a functional work that inspired play and engagement. Through consultation with The Deanery and the artist to see what could be done to extend the lifespan it was decided that this work has run its natural course and there is no further intervention we can do without changing the intention of the work completely. 

Maintenance work has also taken place on two others of the Our Common Roots series, elm elm maple elm by Theodore Heffler has been tended to by the artist removing a large chunk of rotted wood, and the paddles from the Mi’kmaw Sign Post by Alan Sylliboy were replaced in consultation with the artist. The Bench, by Steve Sekerak, which was never installed will soon find its home inside the Halifax Common Aquatic Facility community space. 

Flight, Erin Philip, Our Common Roots

Flight, Erin Philip, Our Common Roots